Stalling while driving on the 2003 Nissan Altima
2 fires 2 of the 47 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
When stalling while driving gets reported
Owners of the 2003 Nissan Altima report stalling while driving at a median of 70,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 50,000 miles and a quarter after 107,500 miles, from 46 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 75,000 miles. It is the 8th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 37,500 miles at the tenth percentile to 122,500 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 85,000 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A spread this wide points at use rather than design. Towing, climate, service history and city mileage all move a failure like this, so the median is a weak guide to any individual car.
11% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 37,000 miles | 49,013 miles | 69,375 miles | 107,000 miles | 122,000 miles |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 2 a fire is mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $300–$2,500 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
This mode is classified as critical, which means a failure can leave the car unable to stop, steer, or stay out of the way of traffic. It is weighted accordingly in the risk score.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 13 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2015, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2011 at 170,000 miles.
By volume the 2003 is the worst of them, which makes this a problem of this specific year rather than of the model as a whole.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
I have a 2002 nissan altima 3.5 se. The crankshaft position sensor has now failed twice, the second time the car just died while driving! Fortunately I was not on the highway with a big-rig following me, or most likely I would not be alive today. The car is still in the shop with the part on back order, which tells me that they (nissan) are having lots of failures with this part. I consider this to be a significant safety issue and fell that a recall on this item should at least be investigated. Thanks, ronald j. Colfer. *nlm
2003 nissan altima engine cut off while driving and the consumer was unable to restart the engine.*mr while passing a vehicle on a 2 lane highway the vehicle stalled without warning. The vehicle's air flow meter was replaced. The consumer had to pay for repairs because the vehicle was no longer under warranty. *nm
2003 nissan altima - 2.5 liter engine: engine stalled without warning and the service engine soon light came on.the engine was diagnosed and the cause was failure of the crank position sensor. There was no warning before the engine stalled. The engine stalled approximately 8 times before I was able to correct the problem. The engine did not start right away after stalling'.the starter engaged for a lengthy period before the engine would start again. I did have some difficulty maneuvering the vehicle to a safe stop since the power steering doesn't work when the engine stalls. My wife had an even more difficult time due to strength differences.
Also reported on the 2003 Nissan Altima
Other engine problem
Other body or interior problem
Control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure
Engine sensor failure
Excessive oil consumption
No-start or intermittent start failure
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 47 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does stalling while driving happen on the 2003 Nissan Altima?
Across 46 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 70,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 50,000 miles and a quarter after 107,500 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is stalling while driving on the 2003 Nissan Altima?
47 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.2 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed